


Run boys, run

by Achika



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Ambiguity, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achika/pseuds/Achika
Summary: When he's first starting out in the wrestling business, Kevin meets a stranger in a bar and makes a potentially unwise bargain.





	

Kevin's been dragged out by some of his fellow wrestlers to a bar. He hadn't been particularly enthused about it at first, but there was no way in hell he was going to be the only sober one dealing with a bunch of drunks, so Kevin is drunk too.

(He tells himself later that's why he didn't realize until it was too late, but that feels an awful lot like denial.)

"I'm telling you, when the crowd gets behind you it's like...it's like..." Kevin says. He's been rambling to the guy sitting next to him at the bar for...a while now. But the guy doesn't seem annoyed.

The guy smiles, just a little, and Kevin blinks a few times because he could have sworn the dingy bar they were in just got brighter. Probably one of the lightbulbs is just close to burning out and is on the fritz, he tells himself.

"A prayer?" the guy says, completing Kevin's sentence for him. He not making fun of Kevin, but there's something in his voice that's...amused? A little wistful? Kevin's too drunk to parse it.

"Yeah! See, you get it. It's magic, man. It makes you want to be the best. I am going to be the best! I'd do anything to get to the WWE. I _will_ do anything to get to the WWE,"

"Oh really?" the guy asks. He looks happy. The lights from the bar are bouncing off the strands of gold in his ginger hair. It's kind of mesmerizing.

"Well, for what it's worth, I have complete faith in you. I'd like to help, if you'll let me,"

(Kevin doesn't actually remember much from that night, but he's seen that smile often enough since that it's burned into his brain. He can fill in the blank.)

The next day Kevin is hungover and unhappy, and when he shows up there's a new guy in a mask bouncing off the walls.

"Kevin, this is El Generico. Generico, this is Kevin," someone says and then promptly disappears, happy to pawn the new guy off on someone else.

"uh...Hi, I guess," Kevin says, confused. No one had said anything about another guy joining up.

"Sí! Kevin! Muy bien!" Generico says, smiling at Kevin brightly.

Generico takes his hands, and his grip is unnaturally warm. Kevin doesn't notice.

(That's the start, but it's also the end.)

Kevin's career is on an upswing. He's been tagging with Generico for a while and the crowd loves them. The high is amazing.

"Numero Uno!" Generico shouts, climbing all over Kevin because the man is a goddamn spider monkey.

Kevin's career is going great but his mental state has been out of whack recently.  He just keeps getting angrier and meaner and he doesn't understand why. The guys in the locker room have taken to avoiding him, and Kevin doesn't blame them. Everyone except Generico. Generico who looks at him with soft eyes even when Kevin's got their opponent's blood on him. 

 Kevin doesn't realize how bad it's gotten until Generico gets booked in a show without him and has to leave for a few days. Before he goes he gives Kevin a big kiss, in front of everyone.

"Sé bueno, Kevin," Generico says, and goes to get in the car.

When he's gone, it's like a fog's been lifted.

Kevin can suddenly think, and he realizes how weird Generico really is. He doesn't move like a human, too graceful for that. He's too persuasive. His Spanish is shit.  No one's seen behind his mask, not even Kevin.

Nothing about him makes sense.

Kevin's thinking about his impossible tag team partner and something clicks in his brain and he remembers a bar, and a man, and an offer.

(He kicks himself for not recognizing it sooner. The smile should have been enough.)

"Why don't you ever take off your mask?" Kevin asks.

Generico shakes his head and waves his arms frantically.

"No! No, es muy mal! Muy, muy mal!" he says.

"Bad for you? Or for me?" Kevin asks, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

"Sí! Tú Comprendes!" Generico says with a smile.

(Kevin doesn't miss the fact that he didn't actually answer the question.)

Kevin sneaks into the venue the night before and finds one of the steel chairs. He carefully carves symbols copied off the internet into it, and sprinkles it with holy water. If Generico really is what Kevin thinks he is, it will work. If it doesn't, Kevin will march to the psych ward himself and make them throw away the key.

The next day, Kevin swings the chair at Generico with all his might and Generico crumbles.

He stares at Kevin wide-eyed beneath the mask, betrayed, and Kevin can see the warding symbols burning into his skin.

Generico covers them up before they even get back to the locker room.

"Por que?" Generico asks.

"I need to get back what's mine," Kevin says, glaring. He cannot let Generico close. That's how the anger and the madness started. "If you won't _give_ it back, I'll _take_ it,"

"Tu cosa..." Generico mutters to himself. He looks...sad and amused at the same time, under the mask. He points at Kevin and shakes his head. "Todas las ventas son _finales,"_ he says, before walking away.

Kevin's Spanish is shit, too, but he doesn't need it to understand.

(Kevin fights. He fights and fights until there's nothing left because there's nothing else he can do.)

 

Generico leaves, taking a piece of Kevin with him, but he's not _gone_. There's no escaping Kevin's past mistakes. Generico's mask comes to Kevin in a box. The crowd won't stop singing Generico's stupid song. Kevin knows it's not over. It can't be.

A piece of Kevin is missing.

(There's a phone call, an offer, and Kevin's dreams coming true, and Kevin tastes alcohol on his tongue even though he's sworn off it.)

Kevin walks into the performance center and the first thing he sees is ginger hair under bright florescent lights. He feels his stomach drop like he's on a roller coaster.

"I told you you'd get here," says that voice, in perfect English now.

Kevin is trying to think of a response when someone yells.

"Sami! Introduce us to the new guy!"

"Sure," Sami says, and motions for Kevin to follow.

(Kevin should have seen it coming. Kevin knew it wasn't over, why wouldn't he show up just when Kevin was getting everything he'd ever wanted? Kevin kicks himself for being unprepared.)

 

There's another. A guy who smiles just as nice as Sami, who's just as charming, and who sets the hair on Kevin's arm standing straight up.

"Sami!" says a comforting Irish brogue. "Who's your pal, there?"

"Finn!" Sami says cheerily. "Finn, this is Kevin,"

Finn's eyes widen, just a bit.  "Oh ho. _This_ is _Kevin._ Well, fancy that. Ah, mind my paint there, fella. Don't want any of _that_ getting on ya,"

(There is no questioning what Finn really is. Kevin's learned more about religion than he'd ever meant to, at this point, and knows a pretty face can hide an awful lot.)

 

Before he goes out at the end of Takeover he pours holy water over his hands and, when he gets in the ring to congratulate Sami, he runs them over the apron.

Sami screams when he's slammed into it.

"Give. It. Back, you demon," Kevin hisses, so no mics can pick it up.

Sami's barely conscious, but he gives Kevin a look that is both judgmental and pitying.

"Is that what you think I am?" Sami says, just before Regal and the stretcher and refs all start crowding around.

Kevin's doesn't know how to cope with that answer, so he doesn't.

And a piece of Kevin gets stretchered out with Sami.

**Author's Note:**

> AKA is Sami a Demon? Or a Guardian Angel? Who knows! Not Kevin!
> 
> Genrico's Spanish is provided entirely by my fuzzy memories of four years in high school, as God and Rami intended. 
> 
> Follow me on twitter @withoutthesour for more ridiculous wrestling talk.


End file.
